


Fools in Love

by idiopathicsmile



Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 00:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6063055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiopathicsmile/pseuds/idiopathicsmile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Ughhhh,” said Ben a few minutes later. “Ugh, it’s so sappy and, and cliched and she’s gonna think I’m <i>joking</i>—“</p>
<p>Apparently, they could stop pretending this wasn’t about Beatrice. Balthazar appreciated that. “Maybe tell her you’re not, then.”</p>
<p>Ben’s eyebrows knit together. “Like, in the lyrics themselves? Or some sort of fine print disclaimer beforehand that you hold up on a notecard while playing an intro on the kazoo?”</p>
<p>“In the lyrics,” said Balthazar. He strummed a C chord, then a G. E minor. A minor. “When you’re writing a song for someone, probably helps to get specific. It’ll mean more to them, y’know?” He tried for F minor 7. It didn’t sound right. “If you stay vague and mysterious, they might not know it’s about them. In, like, a you-and-them sense.” He rearranged his fingers on the frets, pressed harder. “Or they kind of—have the option of pretending they don’t know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Or: two times Balthazar Jones helped his friends express their feelings via song, and one time he did not.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fools in Love

On Friday, Ben stopped him in the hallway after English.

“Balthazar!” said Ben. “Balthy! Baltha…saurus. Balthasaurus rex!” He clapped his hands together. “Need to ask you something.”

Balthazar had been called a lot of things in his life. Dinosaur was pretty okay, he reckoned. “Ben,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Listen,” Ben said, “I’ve got a—hypothetical—ah, no, no, bad word, never mind. I’ve been trying to do something, and I’m definitely making a mess of it, and I need your help. With something.” He raised his eyebrows. “A _musical_ something.”

“Sure,” said Balthazar. It wasn’t so often that his skills could come in handy in a helping-people-you-know kind of way. “When do—“

“Shh!” Ben cut him off by waving one hand in the air like a conductor. He threw a wild look around the hall, eyes darting in all directions. “You can’t tell anybody! Not a single person.”

“Okay,” said Balthazar. “Secret song, got it.”

He must have agreed too fast, because Ben narrowed his eyes. “I mean it,” he hissed. “Top secret, comprende? This will require every ounce of your skill and cunning. In fact—” His face lit up. “We should have codenames! I’ll be…uh…Ben…ton. Benton! Your turn.”

Balthazar rocked back on his heels. “Y’know,” he said, “Think I actually like Balthasaurus rex.”

 

“This is _impossible_ ,” Ben declared, flopping back into the grass. “Nothing rhymes with ‘lady’, why did I literally open by backing myself into this cursed lyrical corner?”

Balthazar plucked a few more random notes. “Shady,” he offered.

“Doesn’t work in context.” Ben picked up his notebook, frowned, sighed, rolled his eyes, and threw the notebook down again. “Songwriting is so bloody difficult, man. I figured all I needed was feelings and a friend who could play some chords, but it’s all a maze of, of impossible to capture sentiments and _useless bloody words_ —“

“‘Baby’ works, too,” said Balthazar. “If you’re okay with, like, slant rhyme. Almost-rhymes.” He thought a little more. “Or ‘Hades,’ or ‘maybe’, or—“

Ben sprang back up. “Balthasaurus rex, you are a genius!”

Balthazar shrugged. Will Oldham was a genius. Marcus Mumford was a genius. Making stuff rhyme generally came down to patience. “It’s just—going through the alphabet,” Balthazar said as Ben eagerly grabbed the notebook again.

In reality, Balthazar wasn’t a prodigy or anything. He wasn’t bad; sometimes he thought he was pretty alright. But it wasn’t magic. What he had, at the end of the day, was a love of music that extended beyond the bounds of his body, that made his bones ache. He carried songs in the back of his mind no matter what else he was doing, replayed them in his headphones until they lit up new pathways in his brain, picked up every instrument he could find, any second he could spare.

When you did anything all the time, you got good at it. That was simple cause and effect. If his friends were right, if there was something separating him from other teenage musicians, it was that simple: he cared more. He didn’t know how to care less.

“Ughhhh,” said Ben a few minutes later. “Ugh, it’s so sappy and, and cliched and she’s gonna think I’m _joking_ —“

Apparently, they could stop pretending this wasn’t about Beatrice. Balthazar appreciated that. “Maybe tell her you’re not, then.”

Ben’s eyebrows knit together. “Like, in the lyrics themselves? Or some sort of fine print disclaimer beforehand that you hold up on a notecard while playing an intro on the kazoo?”

“In the lyrics,” said Balthazar. He strummed a C chord, then a G. E minor. A minor. “When you’re writing a song for someone, probably helps to get specific. It’ll mean more to them, y’know?” He tried for F minor 7. It didn’t sound right. “If you stay vague and mysterious, they might not know it’s about them. In, like, a you-and-them sense.” He rearranged his fingers on the frets, pressed harder. “Or they kind of—have the option of pretending they don’t know.”

“Yeah,” said Ben. “I guess?” Then, “You alright, there? That is not an face I normally see you directing at musical instruments.”

Balthazar blinked. “I’m fine.” His hand was starting to cramp up. He shook it out. “So, in terms of this song. How does she make you feel? Uh, specifically.”

“Impressed,” Ben said. “So impressed. A bit sad right now, because she’s sad, with everything going on with her. But also, like–” He stared into space, smiling. His eyes got a little unfocused. “Happy? Really, really happy. Slightly—scared, sometimes? But mostly happy. Happy and turned on.” He paused. “Maybe it’s a bad idea to mention that.”

“I mean, if your goal is to tell her how you feel,” said Balthazar, “and that you hope she—“

“Oh hey, that’s good.” Ben snatched up his pen. “Give me another hour, I’ve got this.”

 

The melody was gonna come together pretty fast, Balthazar could tell. Ben already had a sense of how he wanted to sing it, so mostly they needed to match up those notes with chords, or tweak the singing where it didn’t line up with a good progression.

“—so then, for, uh, the outro, like right before the last two lines,” said Ben, “and these are maybe placeholder lyrics, but I was thinking something like—“ He flung his arms out. “Beatrice Beatrice Beatrice Beatrice _Beatrice_ Beatrice Beatrice Beatrice—“ He sucked in a deep breath. “Beatrice Beatrice Beatrice Beatrice Beatrice Beatrice Beatrice Beatrice BeatriceBeatriceBeatriceBeatrice, and then a few more measures in that—” Ben scratched the back of his neck. “That general vein.”

“So, uh, be honest, man,” said Balthazar with a smile, tapping out a beat on the side of his ukulele. “Who’s this song about?”

“Need I reiterate ‘top secret’?” said Ben.

Balthazar looked a few feet across the lawn, to where Ben had already set up the camera and tripod.

Ben followed his gaze. “Let’s do a runthrough or two,” said Ben, “and then we can have a snack break before we start filming.”

 

“So, how’s life?” Ben asked in the kitchen. “The Mighty Balthazar. Y’know, we see each other all the time, but we hardly ever really talk.”

Balthazar took a spoonful of yoghurt. “We talk,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Ben. “I feel like, I don’t actually know that much about you, though. Musical genius, blah blah, blah, but it’s like.” He frowned, thoughtful. “It’s like, every time we talk, it’s always about _me_.”

“That’s not true,” said Balthazar. “Sometimes it’s other stuff. Our friends. Music. Birds.”

 

(Their first in-depth conversation had happened one night in Year 11, when Ben made the jump from ‘I see you are carrying a viola case’ to ‘Did you know that mockingbirds don’t just imitate other birds but insects and amphibians and even heavy machinery?’ 

Eventually, Beatrice had jumped in, rolling her eyes: ’Incredible. Really incredible, Ben. Your young friend here plays an amazing live performance but, like always, you have no choice but to barge in and make it all about you and your stupid bird factoids.’

‘I liked the bird factoids,’ Balthazar had said with a shrug. ‘Didn’t know that was his signature move, but.’

‘His signature move is being a dick; it’s right there in the name,’ Beatrice had told him as Ben sputtered,

‘I’m not _barging_ anywhere! And I don’t need to tell Balthazar fucking Jones about his own musical talent! He and I understand each other instinctively, as _auteurs_ —‘

‘ _Auteurs_? Benedick, I will hand you all the money in my pockets if you can give me an actual definition for that word, right now,’ Beatrice had snapped.

Ben had looked appealingly at Balthazar, who’d shrugged because much as he enjoyed the bird facts, Beatrice might’ve also had a point. Ben wasn’t an ass, but he probably didn’t know what auteur meant, either.

‘Like I want to touch whatever disgusting shit is in your pockets,’ Ben had snapped back, and—well. And so on.)

 

“But how are you?” said Ben, back in the present, bouncing in his chair. His phone buzzed, and he picked it up. From the look he gave the screen, either somebody had snapchatted him a photo of sleeping baby ducks, or he had a new text from Beatrice. “Hang on, let me just—reply to this.” Ben broke off to grin helplessly at the ceiling, seemed to remember his phone was in his hand, and started typing again. “Hang on.”

Balthazar ate more yoghurt.

“So!” said Ben a few minutes later. “What is the state of the Balthysphere?”

“Fine,” said Balthazar. “Glad to be working on a song again. Haven’t written anything new since—“ Well, since July, really. “A while.” He gestured with his spoon. “Good yoghurt.”

“The best,” Ben agreed. “Anything new with you? How’s the ol’ love life?”

Balthazar shook his head and swallowed the last spoonful in one go. “D’you wanna go over the rap one more time before we turn the camera on?”

“I—yeah,” said Ben. He jumped up, sprinting out of the room. “Hang on! This calls for some fucking sunglasses!”

 

A few weeks later, Beatrice snagged his arm on the way to lunch.

“Balthazar,” she said in a hushed voice, “can we talk?”

“What’s on your mind?”

“Can we meet up after school today?” said Beatrice. She winced. “I need to ask you a favour, and it’s a bit weird and _very_ embarrassing and _oh my god_ you need to promise to me, really genuinely promise that you won’t tell anyone. Not even—not even your closest friends. It’s a weird favour, it’s—weird. And secret. So secret.”

Balthazar nodded. He knew the score. The score, at this point, was not so hard to figure out. “I’ll bring my ukulele,” he said.

 

The second time Balthazar helped one of his friends write a top secret song about being in love with another one of his friends and then perform that song into a video camera, it was both easier and harder. 

Easier, because he had a better sense of what was coming. 

(‘I can’t just—go OH HEY I LOVE YOU, it’s so _cheesy_ ’ 

‘Well maybe put _that_ in the song, then?’ 

‘…Balthazar you’re a genius!’) 

Harder, because he still had to try to keep a straight face, and Balthazar had never been a great liar.

“What’re you laughing at?” Beatrice said, peering up from where she’d flung herself face down onto her bed, moaning. (“ _Why_ is it so _hard_ to write a single decent _bloody_ song?”)

“Something funny on my phone,” he told her.

“You’re not on your phone,” she said.

Foiled again. “Something funny I, uh, remembered seeing on my phone once,” Balthazar amended.

“Oh,” she said. Then she flung herself facedown on the duvet again. “This is gonna be so humiliating!” she said into the pillows. “ _Who does this sort of thing_?”

Balthazar twirled his ukulele in his hands. “That’s a, that’s a good question.”

“What?” she said.

“Wanna go over what we’ve got so far?”

“Yeah, sure.” She reached over for her laptop and jogged the mouse. Balthazar settled down next to her in time to see that the desktop wallpaper was a close-up photo of Ben’s beaming face. “He changed it without asking, last time he came over,” she said when she saw Balthazar looking. “ _So_ annoying, right?” Beatrice tried to scowl, but it didn’t really take. “And then I, y’know, kept it, uh, ironically, as a statement. Like—satire. It’s—it’s basically modern art.”

The ukulele was too small to hide behind, but if Balthazar rested his chin in his hand, maybe she wouldn’t notice how hard he was trying not to laugh. He could hope.

It helped that she hadn’t looked away from the photo.

“Okay,” said Balthazar. “So, from the top, then?

 

“He’s gonna give me so much shit for this,” Beatrice said, some time later.

“Who is?” said Balthazar. Because Beatrice’s lyrics did not mention Ben by name, she was under the impression Balthazar didn’t know who the song was about.

“No one!” she said sharply. “Just, you know. People. Any—any male person. A man. Men.”

“The race of men,” said Balthazar. There was a Lord of the Rings quote in here somewhere, but he couldn’t quite find the shape of it.

Beatrice drew herself upright again, sighing. “Are you sure you don’t wanna sing it with me?”

“I am singing it with you,” he reminded her.

“No, the whole thing. Don’t leave me out there soloing on my own. We could do it in unison?”

The past few months had enough misunderstandings. Balthazar didn’t love the idea of risking another one. This was not his top-secret love confession song. He shook his head.

“Or you could perform it as me,” said Beatrice, brightening. “We could—okay, bear with me! We make you a disguise. We find you a wig that looks like my hair, we dress you in my clothes, and then you can sing it and it’ll sound way better and everyone will be happy.”

“Dunno,” he said. “That—seems really, really rife for far-fetched shenanigans, to be honest.”

“Ughhhh,” she said. She rolled over onto her back. “Ugh.”

Her agonized noises sounded pretty much identical to Ben’s agonized noises, just higher. If you played them on top of each other, the sounds would probably sync up perfectly, he thought. In harmony. In stereo.

Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you smiling?”

“Something—else on my phone. That I saw once,” he mumbled. 

“You’re not texting anyone about this, are you?” said Beatrice.

“No,” said Balthazar. “I respect, y’know, I respect your privacy,” he added. He looked across the room, to the camera waiting on her desk. “Do you wanna give it a go?”

 

“That went alright, right?” Beatrice said, after they turned off the camera. Balthazar hadn’t managed a straight face all the way through, but his face wasn’t what Ben would be watching the video for, and the important thing was they’d gotten a take where all the singing and playing went well, and Beatrice didn’t really freeze up in the middle or yell ‘WHAT AM I DOING.’ 

“It was great,” said Balthazar. “Fist bump?”

She sighed. “Is it always that absurdly hard to write a song?”

“Depends,” he said.

Beatrice rolled her eyes and laughed. “That’s…nicely cryptic,” she said. “Come on, what’s—I dunno, what’s the longest it’s ever taken you?”

He thought this over for a moment. “Infinite time,” he said, “technically. Like, I’ve got plenty of stuff that’s still not finished, so until it’s done, it just—doesn’t exist, all the way out into the future. But when everything’s right, sometimes it can take—an hour? Less if there’s no lyrics.”

“Please tell me three hours is normal,” said Beatrice. “So sorry I devoured your entire afternoon—“

Ben’s song had taken four hours. “Last one I worked on,” Balthazar started, and then remembered: top secret. He trailed off awkwardly.

“Yeah,” she said, slowly. “I know. Back in July. The Ode.”

 

‘An Ode’ had taken upwards of a week—he’d spent days with the melody fully written, no words, before he overheard some throwaway comment at a cafe that left him scrambling for his pen. The rest of it came together in a night, which had felt like a sign at the time. He’d stayed up, writing and rewriting the lyrics— _would his hand fit in yours, I bet it would, better than any other guy’s ever could_ —and then he’d played it the next day, Ursula giving him a knowing look from behind the camera, Pedro leaning in the doorway, watching with his full attention. Watching Balthazar with his full attention.

Balthazar could only duck his head and concentrate on hitting the high notes and will his fingers steady on the keys, and when he’d finished, Pedro had grinned, warm, genuine, and said,

“Thanks mate, I needed a laugh.”

And then Balthazar had to sing it again so Ursula could get enough footage to cut it together into a decent video.

 

“Ugh,” said Beatrice. When he glanced back up at her, she was making the face she’d been making lately whenever Pedro’s name came up. “Still so pissed at him.”

“He’s sorry about what happened at Hero’s party,” Balthazar offered. “I know he is.”

“Yeah, I’m aware,” she said. “He’s only apologized seven or eight times. It doesn’t undo what an _ass_ he was. And Claudio, and Leo. _Leo!_ I can’t—pretend that’s okay. Believing some stupid rumors instead of the sweetest, most honest girl in the world—it’s so _shitty_.”

He thought of Hero’s face when Claudio confronted her in front of all their friends, birthday candles still smoking in the background. Not just hurt, but surprised. In a way, the surprise had been worse. Balthazar hadn’t known what to think—he trusted Hero, but he trusted Pedro and Claudio, too, and usually it was easier to believe a sixteen-year-old might lie about cheating on her boyfriend than that they were all part of some wide-reaching revenge conspiracy masterminded by Pedro’s little brother.

“It was,” he conceded. “But I dunno, I don’t think it necessarily makes them shitty, as people.”

“Ugh,” she said. “That’s what Hero said. You’re too nice, both of you. That’s your problem, Balth. You like _everyone_. It’s not natural.”

Did she have a point? Beatrice could be pretty perceptive about people that weren’t her or Benedick. “Of all the, like, all the burdens in the world, though,” said Balthazar.

People got all kinds of shit deals in life. Last week, he’d read this essay by a lady who dreamed of playing the trumpet until she learned she’d never get the sound she was after, thanks to the shape of her jaw. She’d turned to the recorder instead, which just felt excessive. 

Also, people failed out of school or got thrown in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, or, you know, contracted leprosy.

“I shouldn’t tell you this,” Beatrice said, leaning forward, “but Ursula ran into Pedro at the bus stop yesterday and she caught him listening to your song. I mean, he had headphones in, but she saw over his shoulder, and she recognized her own camera work.”

“Oh,” said Balthazar, although it didn’t mean anything, really.

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “What a loser.”

“Agree to disagree,” he said.

Beatrice made another face. “I guess. But hey,” she said, nudging his arm, “thanks for lending me your musical brilliance. Your assistance has been noted. Get it? _Note_ d.”

He could feel himself starting to smile again. “Well hey,” Balthazar said, “it was no treble.”

 

“Balth, can I have a minute?” said Pedro, glancing to either side, hands in his pockets.

“Yeah,” said Balthazar. “You need me to secretly write you a song?”

Pedro stopped walking. “Um,” he said. “...no? Why?”

“Oh.” Balthazar shrugged. “Just—it’s been going around lately,” he muttered.

“Anyway, you already wrote me a song,” said Pedro. “Kind of.”

“Haha yeah,” said Balthazar. He looked down at his shoes and wiggled his toes. 

Pedro clapped him on the back. “Wouldn’t complain if you did another, but I feel like it’s someone else’s turn, mate,” he said. His voice was light but beneath that a little hollow, to match the circles under his eyes. Exams were coming up soon, and none of them had managed much studying, with everything else going on.

Pedro was smart, he’d be fine in any case, but “fine” was probably nowhere near enough for him. He was captain of the football team and student leader, and he got great marks, but the thing about Pedro was he never expected that stuff to impress you, because it never impressed him. He was too busy advancing on the next goal. However hard he could judge other people sometimes, Pedro Donaldson’s toughest critic would always be Pedro Donaldson.

Balthazar frowned, and Pedro clapped him on the back again, more carefully. “Wouldn’t be fair, hogging all that genius talent,” said Pedro, and Balthazar laughed a little, although he still wasn’t a genius at anything other than being the guy in the room who cared the most.

Pedro rubbed his eyes.

“What d’you need, then?” said Balthazar.

“Oh god,” said Pedro, “please tell me you’re coming to this godawful apology party the parents are putting on. It’s gonna be fucking terrible.”

“You’re, uh, really—really selling it, there,” Balthazar observed.

“Please,” Pedro said again. “We are gonna need music, we are gonna need—anything that could possibly distract us from this hell. Tell me you’re free that night, I’m begging you.”

“I’m—actually not, though?” said Balthazar. “I’ve got dinner plans and then a thing the next morning, so I’d have to—come late, leave early—”

“Even if you just—made an appearance, a song or two, that would—”

Balthazar sucked in a breath. “Dunno, man, seems like a tense situation? Not sure it’s the best idea to, like, bust in there with a banjo or a French horn, ‘hey guys’—”

“Castanets,” Pedro threw in, a smile ghosting at one corner of his mouth. “A tuba.” 

“I don’t play the tuba.”

“Could if you wanted,” said Pedro, which was probably true, given enough of a reason to try. “Bagpipes.”

“A set of triangles,” said Balthazar. “Like, if I really went to town on them—” He mimed a triangle solo, and Pedro joined in after a few seconds. Air-triangle playing. Ting ting ting. “A harpsichord,” he added, once that had died down.

“Pretty hard to bust in with a harpsichord,” said Pedro, “unless you’re busting _through_ the wall—”

“—which _would_ be a distraction,” said Balthazar.

“So you’re coming, then?” Pedro asked, and then, at Balthazar’s expression, “Please. Man, I’ll do anything, just—”

“ _Anything_ , oho.” Balthazar wiggled his eyebrows and they both laughed. That was kind of how things were with them. 

But Pedro went serious again. “I will owe you one,” he said.

“Um,” said Balthazar. He tugged his sleeves down, over the tops of his hands. “I’ve got that gig the next day. If you wanna come early and help with set-up—”

“I’d’ve done that anyway,” Pedro protested. He would’ve, too. All-around great guy that he was.

“Gig’s at ten in the morning,” said Balthazar, laughing at how Pedro’s face fell.

“Alright, then, we’re even,” Pedro said. “ _Ten_ in the—”

Balthazar ducked his head. “I don’t make the rules.”

“Okay,” said Pedro. “Thanks, though. For going with me.” ‘Going with’ could be read a lot of different ways, which Pedro seemed to remember a second later. “Claudio and John’re coming, too,” he amended quickly. “So. Good team effort, all around.”

Yeah. Well. “Go team,” said Balthazar. It came out a little flat but passable. 

Pedro didn’t pick up on it at any rate. He was staring into middle distance, but it wasn’t a Ben-staring-at-nothing-while-thinking-of-Beatrice look (or a Beatrice-staring-at-nothing-while-thinking-of-Ben look, which was really pretty similar). It was sort of—the opposite. Not inner lightness, but inner weight.

“Is, uh, everything al—” Balthazar started.

“How could I be so _fucking stupid_ ,” said Pedro. “How could I—seriously not notice, not just everything with Hero but—my own brother, and I couldn’t—”

“Hey,” Balthazar told him. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Y’know, it’s, it’s a cliche but it’s true: like, everybody makes mistakes, man. Can’t avoid it.”

It didn’t take much observation to see that. The notes varied, but the song was the same: everyone had their thing. Either you trusted someone you shouldn’t, or you rushed to judgement too soon. You convinced yourself you didn’t care about a person’s opinion when really it kept you up nights, or you got back together with your ex knowing it was a bad idea, or you struck out at someone without considering who might get hurt in the ripples, or you beat yourself up because you couldn’t meet your own impossible standards. 

Or you went around composing odes to your Year 9 crush because you still hadn’t moved on, because you let yourself get carried away on the strength of his smile when he laughed at your jokes, how his voice went soft talking to you sometimes, even though that wasn’t any kind of promise, even though there was no way to be sure he liked you back, even though he hadn’t worked all the way through his bisexuality yet.

Everyone had something. Hanging at the periphery, being the one who watched all the drama safely from the other side of a guitar or a ukulele or a piano didn’t spare you. 

“Maybe,” said Pedro.

“Hero forgave Claudio.”

Pedro sighed heavily. “Yeah,” he said. “But—I’m not sure she should’ve.” He sighed again, ran a hand through his hair. It’d probably taken him a lot to admit that. “Her call, I guess.”

“I guess,” said Balthazar. “But yeah.” 

“Sorry, not being that much fun right now,” said Pedro.

“It’s cool, it’s cool,” said Balthazar. “You’ve got a lot on your mind.”

“About that.” Pedro took a deep breath. “So,” he said. “I—swing both ways.”

Balthazar blinked. “I know.” They’d talked about Pedro’s bisexuality, and his complicated feelings about it, many, many times. “It’s, uh, come up before.”

“Yeah,” Pedro said, “but I’m thinking, fuck it, you know? This whole year could’ve gone so differently if everyone’d just been honest with themselves. Faced stuff, instead of just talking endless circles around it. The whole words without action thing, it’s stupid. So I think—next person I date, it’s gonna be a guy.”

“Okay,” said Balthazar, nodding. “Cool. Uh, I support you.”

Pedro smiled. “Oh, I have your support?” he repeated.

“My full support.” When Pedro looked at him like that, Balthazar couldn’t do anything echo that smile back. It wasn’t really in his control. “And I think I know every out guy at Messina,” he added, because he still hadn’t looked away and the pause was just starting to get too long, “so if you ever want me to set you up, I can—”

It could’ve been his imagination, but Pedro’s smile maybe dimmed. It was hard to say. Balthazar had liked Pedro from the beginning. That meant he’d spent years searching for signs, hoping the signs meant something. He hadn’t been right so far. 

Or maybe he had, and Pedro just hadn’t gotten past the thinking phase yet.

“Or you can, you can play it by ear,” Balthazar offered. “I’ll support you.”

Pedro was the first to break eye contact, which was a little unusual. He coughed. “Anyway,” he said, “that’s my big news. What’s up with you?”

“Oh, y’know,” said Balthazar. “Going to this apology party on Saturday. I hear it’s gonna be terrible, so. Looking forward to that.”

“Hard to believe we’re almost at the end of the year.”

“Yeah.” Exams in a few weeks, university next year. It was hard to believe. He was looking at Elizabeth College, in Wellington. He’d found out last week that Pedro was looking there, too. 

“Hey,” said Pedro. “Beginning of the year, you said you’d tell me who you liked.”

‘I kind of already have,’ thought Balthazar, but maybe that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t written a declaration of love. He hadn’t sang, _‘Hey, I’m aware of how corny this will sound but here is how I honestly feel.’_ He’d sang, _‘Pedro, he’s everybody’s type.’_ There was a piece of a confession in there, but wrapped in layers of camouflage, room to hide behind. For both of them, really.

“Said you’d know someday,” Balthazar told him. “Doesn’t feel like someday yet.” 

“C’mon,” said Pedro, punching him very lightly on the arm. “Tell me. Tell me. Why all the mystery, man?”

_‘Why do you want to know so bad?’_ thought Balthazar, his heart doing ridiculous, fluttery things in his chest.  “Mystery’s my middle name,” he said.

“Balthazar Mystery Jones,” Pedro said. “You know, it’s not half-bad.”

“There’s a Stanley in there, too,” Balthazar admitted.

Pedro grinned. “Balthazar Stanley Mystery Jones.”

“It’s got a certain ring.”

 

You could laugh all you wanted to about the Beatrice-and-Benedick story, Balthazar thought as he headed out, but there was real bravery involved in putting your whole heart on the line. His own talents ran in other directions. The bravest he got on a day-to-day basis was writing melodies at the upper end of his vocal range. Outside of the odd ukulele love ballad, it wasn’t a bravery that paid off for other people.

Usually it wasn’t. He thought of Pedro—Pedro who lately looked tired and worn-out all the time—playing the ode on headphones, letting the sound waves wind through his mind, weighed down as it was. 

Maybe it was stupid to keep hoping. But Benedick was smart, Beatrice was smart—even an actual genius couldn’t avoid acting like a fool sometimes. You took your chances. You swallowed down the fear. You accepted the possibility of making an ass of yourself, and you kept trying. It was the same with learning an instrument.

As he started up his car, he found himself humming an old, half-finished melody. It was better than he remembered, he thought. He’d set it aside because it was so upbeat that lyrically, he didn’t know what to do with it. For the first time in months, he found himself trying to fit words to the chorus. “Potentially,” he hummed to himself. He liked that. It scanned well, fit the line. He tried it again. “Potentially, this could be—”

What rhymed with “potentially”?

Well. All kinds of things.

**Author's Note:**

> My tremendous thanks to tumblr user [batcii](batcii.tumblr.com) for fact-checking the New Zealand aspects! Please attribute any mistakes to sloppiness on my part.


End file.
